BIG TECH COMPANY
JULY 30, 2021
the glorious sony corporation history
Sony Corporation history started since its establishment shortly after World War II. The company has been introducing a stream of revolutionary electronic products for decades, including the transistor radio, the Trinitron TV, the Betamax VCR, the CD player, the Walkman cassette player and the PlayStation game console.
The Sony Corporation was founded by Masaru Ibuka, a defense contractor, and Akio Morita, a former naval lieutenat on May 7, 1946 in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, Japan. Initially, the company’s name was Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) or TTK.
Ibuka with his previous company, Japan Precision Instruments Company had supplied electronic devices during World War II, while Morita was an applied sciences instructor. They had met during World War II as engineers designing heat-seeking missiles for the Imperial Japanese Army.
Morita and Ibuka had their company facility on a hill in southern Tokyo where they developed their first consumer product: a rice cooker, which failed commercially.
This made TTK abandoned the home-appliance market and with injections of capital from Morita’s father, they started to concentrate on developing new electronic goods. A very crucial step that led their future to a successful story.
In 1950, TTK introduced the first Japanese-designed tape recorder The G-Type followed by the P-type portable model.
In 1952, Ibuka visited the United States and learned about transistor technology. He wasted no more time and made the initial contacts for licensing the transistor from Bell Laboratories. The next year Morita went to the United States and signed the deal with Western Electric.
Using the transistor technology that smaller, durable and less expensive than the vacuum tubes the company was able to create a new small radio that could be carried in hand or pocket.
TTK began mass production of the first Japan transistor radios in 1955 with the release of TR-55. The TTK radio was named Sony, from sonus, Latin for “sound”and “Sonny”, an American name for boys mostly used in 1950’s era. The Sony radio had amazing sales, not only in the Japanese market but also in the United States.
Eventually, the Sony brand became immensely popular so much that the company changed its own name to Sony Corporation in 1958. The name Sony became the official name in January 1958 and was conceived to be an international and not a Japanese term.
During the early 1960’s Sony engineers continued to introduce new, miniaturized products based on the transistor, including an AM/FM radio and a videotape recorder.
By 1968, Sony engineers had developed new color-television technology. The Sony Trinitron produced a clearer image than conventional TV at the time. Sony invested a large amount of capital in the Trinitron, confident that this new TV technology alone would create new markets.
In 1971, after a decade of experience in videotape technology, Sony introduced the U-matic videocassette recorder (VCR). Intended for television stations, the U-matic received an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In 1973, the academy honored the Trinitron series with another Emmy.
Sony developed its first VCR for the consumer market, the Betamax, in 1975. Then the Walt Disney Company and Universal Pictures filed a lawsuit against Sony, complaining that the new machine would enable widespread copyright infringement of television programs. But the end result was in favor of Sony in 1979. By the end of 1980’s though, Betamax lost the video war to VHS format developed by Matsushita Electric (half owned by JVC).
In 1979 Morita personally oversaw the development of a compact cassette tape player called the Walkman. This product would become another one of the revolutionary electronic instruments from Sony.
Inspired by Norio Ohga’s desire to listen to music while walking, Morita ordered the development of a small, tape player, paired with small, lightweight headphones that were already under development. The result was the TPS-L2, the first model of the first-generation Walkman.
The product’s success is now legendary—Walkman even became the generic term for similar devices produced by Sony’s competitors. The term became so popular that it was even included in Oxford dictionary in 1986, a remarkable success in Sony Corporation history timeline.
During the 1980’s decade Sony launched various great electronic products, such as compact disc player and integrated Betacam camera in 1982. The first portable CD player launched in 1984 called Discman. They also bought the rights to use Apple’s hard-disk technology. Then in 1985 the 8mm camcorder was released. The small-lightweight Handycam system was launched in the year 1989.
This was also the year when Sony purchased Columbia Pictures for $3.4 billion in cash. It was the largest US acquisition by a Japanese firm to that date. It was renamed Sony Pictures Entertainment a few years later.
In the 1990’s decade Sony made a brave step by entering the video games industry. Sony Computer Entertainment was established in 1993 and they entered the Japanese gaming market the following year introducing the PlayStation video games console. The console landed in the US market in 1995 and reached a stellar success.
From the 2000’s decade Sony started focusing on digital and gaming market, as well as emerging networks such as broadband and wireless technology. Meanwhile, the PlayStation console series becoming the world’s most selling game console in history.
The most important step in Sony Corporation history in the 21st century was the establishment of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communication in the year 2001. It was a joint venture formed by the Japanese company and Swedish-based Ericsson with intention to produce top-quality multimedia mobile-phones.
Then in late 2011, Sony announced that it’s acquiring the Sony Ericsson joint venture for $1.5 billion. The Sony Ericsson brand ceased in 2012 and the joint venture company was renamed to Sony Mobile Communication. The entity will only concentrate on selling smartphones.
related post